Teger, as someone who has been at VT for 5 years (and about to graduate, sadly), I can pretty safely say that the alumni base is spread out pretty wide across the state of Virginia. Granted, I'm in a completely different field, so I don't know what that means for someone like you, but I would imagine it's not as bleak as you think in terms of networking opportunities.
Plus, beyond the funding you'd get from Tech, Blacksburg is dirt cheap to begin with, and still a...